I'm A Patsy - Gotta Problem With That?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008


Cindy visits the compound

Cindy visited me last weekend and I loved it. I don’t see my daughters very often, so it’s always a treat when I do. I took this picture of Cindy about a year ago as she was standing in front of her new condo. She was very happy and it showed. In the other photo, her mannequin, Angie Dickinson, stands in Cindy’s living room by the fireplace. Cindy has two large mannequins and one is a boy, but I don’t recall his name. Angie is actually Michael Caine dressed as Angie Dickinson from the movie, “Dressed to kill,” which was a very exciting movie. If you never saw it, you won’t know what I’m talking about, but you probably never do anyway. Cindy has Angie dressed in the dress she is wearing in my profile picture for my blog. I love that! She changes Angie’s clothes occasionally so there’s always something new in her living room. Cindy’s tastes are very eclectic as are Teri’s, and there are many puppets, heads and crazy wall-hangings filling the spaces. When Cindy arrived, she was wearing earrings she had made which were quite unique. Her friend, Sonja, has a daughter who lost both her wisdom teeth, and Cindy made earrings out of them. They are dangly with the wisdom teeth swinging on the ends!

Cindy went on Funny or Die.com on the internet and showed me many crazy videos of the McCain/Palin ongoing saga. I especially like the one of McCain in some alley, frantically dialing Sarah to ask her to be VP. Her response is hilarious! Things like that make me laugh, and it’s a relief not to listen to the never ending, grating, squeaky voice of Sarah as she shouts, “I said thanks, but no thanks, to the” - - - I turn it off before she finishes.

Cindy brought a DVD down for us to watch. It was “The Brothers Solomon.” I had never heard of it, probably because it never went anyplace except probably straight to DVD. It was written by Will Forte of SNL. He played one of the brothers and Will Arnett of “Arrested Development” was the other brother. The movie was so stupid, but I laughed all the way through it so it must have been funny. I liked it. Lee Majors played their father and was in a coma the entire time, living with them all hooked up to all sorts of equipment like they do in actual hospitals. The whole thing was a mess, but we enjoyed it.

We managed to have some time to discuss our sorority, I Eta Pi, of which Teri’s the godfather, I’m the housemother and Cindy’s the president. I know Cindy has recruited a few members in Tacoma, but I have just one here – Diane. I don’t know if Teri has done any recruiting in New York, but she better get busy. We’d like to get Meredith Baxter to attend a meeting sometime since the entire sorority is based on Betty Broderick who murdered her ex-husband and his new wife, and Meredith played Betty in the highly successful TV movie. We hope we can make things happen.

I had planned on taking Cindy out to dinner, but she wasn’t hungry as she’d snacked all afternoon, so we ended up each having a Lean Cuisine. I may not be the mother of the year with that dinner menu, but we sure had fun.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Emmy Night

I can’t believe I actually sat through the Emmy show last night. What a big fiasco that was! To start with, what’s the deal with the five Reality show people being hosts? And what about Howie Mandel – what is wrong with him aside from the fact that he is an actual, live Mr. Monk with excessive OCD? Why didn’t someone cut him off before he droned on for what seemed like forever? And what was Oprah Winfrey doing there, congratulating herself on being literate or whatever. Her place is at the daytime Emmy show, not this one.

Any why do they continue to mention all the old shows and people that may have won before. We watch to see who won this year, not who won 20 years ago and how those people look now. Spare us! Too much time was spent on supposedly cute little skits with the hosts – they weren’t cute – they were BORING! And so much time is always spent on some of the awards when what seem to be 500 hundred people saunter up on the stage to accept one award. Why do all those other people have to be there? We know many people work on the shows, but do they all have to show themselves when one person wins the award?

I know Ricky Gervais is a very funny man, but I think his bit could have been completely omitted. It went on too long and wasn’t even that funny. I was very happy with the winners in the big categories – they were all my favorites. I was waiting expectantly for Craig Ferguson when he gave the last award. I knew it was going to be the last one, but I was really pissed when there was no time left for him to be funny and crazy. That was one of my big disappointments for the evening. Very poor planning on the academy’s part.

What was all the talk about National Stay At Home Week? It will be going on during the premiere of most of the new fall series. What a surprise! Did the government have anything to do with this? I wouldn’t be surprised as it sounds like something they might think up.

I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year and see if there’s any improvement. Who am I trying to kid? They will always be the same . . . droning on and on until the audience is comatose or dead. Here’s hoping they come up with a better theme next year, and for God’s sake, get someone to host who can move things along and be funny at the same time.

Thursday, September 18, 2008


Pat has a birthday!

My grandson, Pat, Cindy’s oldest son, is now 24. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that Cindy is old enough to have a kid that age and I am old enough to have a kid her age! Where did the time go? Pat’s in college, and I never see him, but I keep up with what’s going on through Cindy.

I was looking for pictures to put on the blog – I’ve put some on before of Pat – but I came across this one when he was a baby and much younger. I was also much younger, but both of us look so happy that I used it. When Pat was little and his family visited, I would rock him and sing the songs I sang to Teri and Cindy – “Bye Bye Blackbird,” You Are My Sunshine” and many others. Pat liked to rock with me and I loved it. Not all babies like to rock, but Pat sure did. Of course, that didn’t last too long as he grew up as they all do.

When Pat and his brother, Nick, who is three years younger, were young kids, I would go up to Washington where they lived and baby sit sometimes when their parents were out of town. As they grew older, it became a little more difficult as I seemed to have no control. I would lock the doors at night, and sometimes Pat would sneak in a window I had forgotten to check. He always seemed to be one step ahead of me. I did my best, and we all came out alive. At one Christmas get-together at Cindy’s condo, Pat drove me back to my Bed and Breakfast where I was staying as Cindy’s place was full up. It was only several blocks, but we got lost and drove around for a while, trying to find it. I had so much fun with him that night. We had a chance to be together, just the two of us, and it was a very good time for me.

So Pat, I hope your birthday was a good one, and if I can ever get your address at college, I’ll send you a card with something in it. I don’t know just what that will be, but I’ll think of something. I love you a lot and miss not being able to see you very often.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Friday, September 12, 2008


Yesterday my new sofa was finally delivered. My old one was white and sagging and never looked that good or went that well with my décor. Just kidding – I have no décor, and I’m not even sure what it means. But the sofa is brown and goes with the walls better than the white one. It’s big and brown – I like big and brown. And it’s so very comfortable – it’s also my bed as I never sleep in a bed anymore due to an unfortunate incident with an intruder one night years ago. So I slept on it last night, and it was wonderful! I love it! Teri wanted me to send her a picture, so I took a few and sent her the one above. You’ll notice the little man with the suitcase is in it again – he was in my last potato blog. I think I’ll call him the “Dude.” He may be dragging his suitcase along the campaign trail with his wife - the sexy librarian by day and the really sexy librarian by night - who wants to ban books and won’t allow sex education. Or maybe he’s trying to get away from all that foolishness and go back home where he can shoot moose, fish, hunt and do all those manly things – come to think of it, that’s what his wife does.

I just watched Craig Ferguson where he went off on the political scene. I was really proud of him. I think it was the best monolog I’ve seen him deliver. He became very excited about the fact that enough people aren’t voting. He’s from Scotland and became an American citizen recently. He takes voting very seriously and said people who don’t vote are stupid. He doesn’t want to be friends with the candidates, go out to dinner with them or have any contact with them. He just wants them to work for the country. He doesn’t like to see all their kids being shown all the time and dragged into the public eye – why is that important? The important thing is to elect someone who can run the country and make the necessary changes, not someone who has a dozen kids and shows them off. He became very excited and the audience loved it and so did I. He showed a registration form and said they would be at the door when the audience left. I was so energized by his talk that I almost went out to find a registration form . . . and then I remembered that I didn’t need to do that. I hope many people watched his show – it was a winner!

I think I’ve had just about enough of the Sarah Palin Chronicles. Isn’t that a Fox show? Anyway . . . I watched Sarah last night with her buddy Charlie Gibson and learned only two things. I now know that you can see Russia from Alaska, and Sarah says nucular like George Bush does. Other than that, she never gave a straight answer to anything, but did a lot of talking around the subjects. I also saw her saying in another interview that she didn’t want to turn on TV and see stories about Hollywood wives – she thinks TV is going too far. So if she wins, will all my favorite shows be banned? If that’s the case, I think I’ll move to Canada with Cindy. She says she’s moving if that happens. Maybe we could open a bed and breakfast and have my new sofa in the greeting room. Excellent idea, I think. And we would hope Craig Ferguson would be our first guest.

Monday, September 08, 2008


My Potato Harvest

Yesterday I needed to do something to take the bad taste out of my mouth as a result of the republican convention which was a travesty. I was on the phone with my daughter, Cindy, a lot of the time. We especially got a kick out of the group passing the Down syndrome baby back and forth amongst themselves – even Cindy McCain, the Pod person, had her turn with him. And when it spent time showing Sarah’s youngest girl, licking her hand and smoothing the baby’s hair to one side - that was beyond icky! Why was this baby even present unless it was to impress all the conservatives? I don’t want to ever be subjected to anything like that again. I guess I just don’t have to turn on TV. Or I could surf the channels in hopes I might find a “Seinfeld” episode. I could also watch Craig Ferguson on my DVR. Craig and Jerry can always make me laugh.

So, to clear my head, I decided to harvest my potatoes that I had planted in the spring. They were planted in a big, wooden pot on my deck. My only experience with planting potatoes had been with my dad which we did every spring. But I couldn’t remember – no surprise – when it was the time to dig them up. I had huge plants above ground, and one was turning yellow so I decided it was time. I pulled up each plant, and there were many potatoes hanging on to the roots! I was so excited! I think I probably should have left them in the ground maybe a month longer as they might have grown to be really big. But as you can see from the picture, there are many different sizes. I’m going to eat some tonight which will be a thrill.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I took out my carrot and tomato plants I had growing in my computer room right next to me. Audrey IV never got to have any tomatoes on her as I took her down when she just had blossoms. I needed the space, and I doubt that there will be anymore Audreys or carrots in the computer room – probably no plants at all. It was a sad day, but I’ve gotten over it. But now with the potatoes, I’m already looking forward to next year when I’ll have two pots going on my deck.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Thank God, it’s over!

I tried to watch the entire McCain speech last night, but found myself wanting to do something else like watch “Seinfeld.” But I stuck with it and drifted away just a few times because he was so boring and grinning in such a totally weird way the entire time. First I had to sit through Cindy McCain’s bio which made her out to be the second coming of Mother Theresa which we know is a laugh. And then her speech about what a good father McCain is as if that’s the most important part of being a good president. She was boring. Then it went on to the bio of McCain and his long, boring speech. I am so sick of hearing about his hero grandfather, hero father and his being a POW and coming out a hero. We have heard those stories so many times and I’m sure there are many people who are as sick of hearing about them as I am.

The only real applause McCain got was when he mentioned Sarah. She stood up, pushed out her lower lip and gave the thumbs up sign. What’s that about? Will she be doing that all the time? And sometimes adding a wink? She seems to give the thumbs up to everything and everybody. And another thing that bugs me - actually it pisses me off - is how everyone keeps mentioning her remark about lipstick and pit bulls and so on. That phrase is so last year . . . no, it’s so last decade! She didn’t originate it, but she seems to have claimed it. She doesn’t mention anything about how to fix the economy. According to her, the answer to everything is “drill, drill, drill.” But I do love the picture of her in her two-piece bathing suit holding a gun. But I’m wondering how that will play with her sexy, little, librarian image that is going around.

I talked to my daughter, Cindy, a couple of times last night. She told me she had been to a convention for her work months ago and it was held at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where McCain spoke last night. Cindy said when she was there, the center was packed with no vacant seats. She said last night she could see plenty of vacant seats and figured they didn’t pay enough seat-fillers to attend. I loved that!

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Fun news day!

The news is really picking up lately. I’m completely overwhelmed by the wealth of information that is coming out concerning Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate. It is mind boggling, and so much fun to read! I learned that she was once mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, for a short time. Wasilla is a town of less than 6,000. When her mother-in-law ran for mayor of Wasilla, Sarah supported the opposition. Sarah has a four-month old son with Down syndrome. She knew of this before his birth which should really endear her to the conservative base. Sarah was being investigated over claims that she had pressured a former state public safety commissioner into resigning. The safety commissioner said he felt pressured by Sarah’s administration and her husband to fire a state trooper who was going through a nasty divorce with Sarah’s sister. And then it was disclosed her husband, Todd, pleaded guilty to driving while drunk in 1986; he was driving a pickup with friends. Now I say, “Whose husband hasn’t been pulled over for driving drunk in a pickup?” That should be a non-issue. Happens to all men in pickups. But then there’s her daughter, Bristol, who is 5 months pregnant and no one knew until just a few days ago. She is having the baby, of course, and plans to marry her redneck boyfriend who will be at the convention tonight. That must be one big happy family! I can hardly wait for her speech tonight.

The other exciting news was about cheating men. Why do men cheat? Because they can. That’s just my thought on the subject. But apparently there is a study in Sweden which studied the hormone vasopressin. They studied 552 people and found that a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. They found that men with two copies of RS3 334 were twice as likely to cheat on their partners. This has been proven in the study of voles (rodents), sometimes called meadow mice, which we apparently are quite like. Some voles are monogamous and some are serial commitment-phobes – just like humans. So now men have an excuse to cheat – it’s in their genes!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008


Back to School – happy days for everyone!

It’s the first day of school in second grade for Teri in the top picture. She’s so cute with her notebook and lunch box. Was that a Barbie lunch box? Cindy posed for a few of the pictures, but in this one, she was tired of posing and walked off. It wasn’t her day anyway, so why should she stick around?

In the bottom picture, it’s the first day of school in first grade for Cindy and the first day in fifth grade for Teri. They both look so pretty and happy. I think I was looking pretty and happy also!

It was always an exciting time, getting ready for a new school year. We would shop for all the supplies they needed and plan out what clothes they would wear the first day and days after that. I don’t think these days they give as much thought to their clothes – do they even wear dresses anymore in grade school? I enjoyed those days and miss the feeling of being needed to get the girls ready for school. I guess I just miss being needed. But when school started, I was free to do all the things I wanted to do. I did a lot of sewing clothes for the girls, I watched soap operas, I took care of my many rose bushes, I watched over my goldfish and frog in my fishponds, I took care of our duck, Bonnie, and our goose, Clyde. I also had two box turtles in the living room in a plastic swimming pool. One of them laid an egg, so I nurtured it along for months but it never hatched. Guess my mothering skills left something to be desired at least where turtles were concerned. But wait . . . I did all those things even when the girls were home, so my life didn’t change all that much except for the fact I didn’t have the girls helping me with the outside chores which were fun for all of us. I did have more time to visit with my neighbor gals as most of them didn’t work outside the home. You can see that was a long, long time ago! We’d get together for coffee in the morning sometimes and maybe a little wine in the afternoon or vice versa – whatever we felt like. Those were good times, but they’re gone. At least I have good memories of those days and will never forget them.

Now I don’t even know just what day is the first day of school. All I know is that I have to be careful and watch the speed limit around schools. I do that all year anyway as I’m never sure if a school is having summer school, sports camp, gymnastic workouts, ballet classes, Yoga classes, AA meetings, Pilates classes, sex education for seniors, sex education for juniors, sex education for immigrants and so on. There are so many reasons for the schools to be busy all summer, so I just try to drive the required speed limit all year. Sometimes I’m sure people behind me get mad, but it’s better to save a little old lady’s life who is crossing the street just to find out which sexual positions are now in style for seniors than to run her over. We all have needs and she deserves the best. So I’m careful, and I hope everyone else is.

So I hope this school year is a good one for all the kids and parents. If not, there is always next year. I have three grandsons – two in college and one in middle school. I wish I could have given each of them a Barbie lunch box to make the first day perfect for them, but I’m sure they’ll do quite well without them.