I'm A Patsy - Gotta Problem With That?

Sunday, December 30, 2012


Christmas at the Compound 2012

This year our family was split up. Cindy, Mick and April spent Christmas at the compound with me. Teri, Mark and Harry went to Belize! I wonder who had more excitement! Teri and her family slept under, or in, or on top of a huge Mayan pyramid, and they even had to provide their own tents! Cindy and Mick got to sleep in my bed with clean sheets and not in a tent. April slept in the bed part of the time with them. April is a bullmastiff and quite large! That must have been almost as exciting for them as sleeping in a pyramid. I had spread a sheet over my bed (couch) because I knew April would try to get up which she did. So Christmas night she lay on it beside me on the couch and watched tv. She drooled all over the sheet so it was quite uncomfortable for a while. She finally went to bed with Mick and Cindy. I don't think she drooled on them.

I cooked a rib roast which probably wasn't even cooked in the center. We all love rare meat so I always laugh hysterically when I read recipes about keeping a close eye on the meat thermometer! Meat thermometer? Who has one of those? I don't know what Teri had to eat, but she did say the Mayans came in and woke them in the night for some kind of ceremony. I wonder if they joined a Mayan cult without realizing it! They'll know when they begin getting the Mayan newsletter every month with it's pleas for money! The world didn't end on the 2lst so they missed out on that.

Cindy and Mick left the next day and took the rest of the roast and my chocolate chip cookies. We had a great time here at the compound, and I think Teri's family had a wonderful time on their excursion. Harry told me they hiked a long time in a dark cave and  were tired. They do so many fun things! They took me once to Mexico and I saw a huge spider in front of my apartment there. That's enough excitement for me and it didn't even make me tired like their cave walk did them.

This picture is of Mick and Cindy. I think they're looking happy. April was somewhere, probably drooling. Cindy's two boys, Pat and Nick, couldn't be here. They actually aren't little boys anymore, they're men, but they'll always be boys to me. So, even though we weren't all together for the holiday, we managed to enjoy ourselves.

Sunday, December 09, 2012


Showtime's "Homeland" - It scared my hair white last Sunday!

I actually had my hair colored a few days later! I just started watching "Homeland" a few months ago after Teri told me how good it is. It has the most gripping storyline  I've seen on tv and the actors are superb. I didn't watch the first year so don't know all the characters that well and get things mixed up sometimes. But I do know that Clare Danes who plays Carrie Mathison, a CIA analyst, is bipolar and pops pills all the time to keep her from going manic which she does anyway. She was in the hospital before I started watching and is trying to stay out of it now. Damian Lewis who plays Nicholas Brody, was recently rescued from a camp in alQaeda land (Iraq) after 8 years of captivity and torture. His captor, Abu Nazir, saw his little son killed by a drone strike which affected Brody as he had grown very fond him. Nazir was in charge of Brody's torture, etc. but Brody built up a sort of Stockholm syndrome, or maybe an alQaeda syndrome, so now there is a question of whether or not Brody is a good guy now that he's home or was he "turned" in captivity.

Brody and Carrie fall in love even though she doesn't trust him and is tracking him for the CIA. The story continues on as all stories do with Brody trying to get back to the good times with his wife and kids and with Carrie in the picture. It's just like a normal american family, isn't it? The CIA uses Brody for publicity and the Vice President of the US wants him to run with him when he runs for president. Brody doesn't like the VP and neither do I as if that mattered. Nazir gets to the US - wasn't he on the no fly list? Anyway, he contacts Brody and wants him to kill the VP. All Brody has to do is get the secret numbers for the VP's pacemaker!! BOOM!! That was like a shot in the heart and scared the crap out of me! Nazir abducts Carrie and threatens to kill her if Brody doesn't get the numbers which are hidden in the VP's office. So Brody manages to get the numbers and texts them to Nazir who passes them on to a computer guy who uses them immediately. So the VP walks into the room with Brody and starts acting goofy. You can see his blood pressure going up on the screen and other signals he's in distress, and pretty soon he's not only in distress, he's dead as a doornail!

After I recovered from that episode and realized I was still alive, I eagerly awaited the next episode. This is quite a show!!

Sunday, December 02, 2012


My Mini Aviary

I've written before about my bird feeder I had on my deck that I loved. I could sit on my couch right next to the window and door to my deck and watch all the birds that came every day. I could have spent the entire day just watching them, but I made myself do some housewifey things once in a while. I don't know why since I'm not a wife and I don't have a house - I have a condo. Maybe I'll quit doing those things whatever they were. But the bird feeder didn't have a long life as I had to take it down. I had cats, squirrels, rats and probably other animals I never saw. They would try to get at it or else just wait and eat the seeds the birds threw out. When the huge rat slithered up I couldn't stand it. I threw all sorts of things at it, but nothing worked. So I gave it away and the birds still came and flew around. They'd fly at the windows and I think give me the evil eye. I felt awful, but I couldn't do anything about it. However . . . . . 

I still had Larry. Larry was my pet sparrow. I called him mine because he appeared a couple of years ago during a snowstorm, and I fed him on the ledge of my deck. He's been with me ever since. But sparrows don't eat from feeders - they eat from the ground. So he always hopped around under the feeder. So when that was gone, I put a little seed in a certain place in one of the flower pots, hoping Larry would find it. And he did! There were beautiful impatiens in the pot and he maneuvered around them. Every day he came. But I had to take the impatiens out as bad weather was coming and they'd die, so I took them out. They were beautiful flowers, and every year I had them. I hated to see them go, but I wanted something that would come up every year - I guess that's what you call a perennial. I thought my spell check would correct me, but I guess I got it right. So I went to a nursery and bought two Sedge 'Evergold' plants. They look like old english sheepdogs with all the hair hanging down! I had to put a plastic container in the pot for the food because when I put the food in the dirt in the pot it did something weird! It made a sort of web come out of the ground that was stiff and icky. When I pulled on it, it pulled up the ground with it. So I put the container with food as far in as I could so that no one else would see it. I pulled the plant over the food to hide it. Now Larry comes to eat several times a day, and I can watch. I feel like Larry is part of my family. He makes me happy. I don't have any pets so Larry is my pet. I had a pigeon once that stopped here in front of my condo and stayed for several months! He had a band on his leg but I could never get close enough to read the numbers. I bought special food for him and he stayed in that one place all the time except at night when he'd fly who knows where. But he was always back in the morning. I named him Larry. All of my pets will be named Larry. He brought a bimbo one morning with him and did a little mating dance and then flew away with her. I never saw him again. What is it about men and bimbos?

My daughters have pets. They always had pets when they lived at home so they know how I feel about Larry. I miss my girls a lot. But Larry sort of fills the void. He hops around on my deck with his skinny little legs and makes me laugh. My girls never hopped around the deck with their skinny little legs, but maybe the next time Teri and Cindy visit I'll have them do it. Maybe Larry can watch!

I'm sorry I couldn't get Larry in the picture in his feeding tray, but he doesn't stay very long in it. He probably doesn't feel too safe undercover. And I can't get close enough as it scares him away. So just imagine.