HAPPY EASTER, MUDBUGS & TECHNOLOGY

A Happy Easter to all of you. Have you searched for all the hidden Easter eggs and found your Easter baskets full? I was going to make one for Bill but as usual my mind was off wool gathering and I was thinking I had another week to go so poor Bill had no Easter basket. How sad.

But left to his own devices, and unbeknownst to me he had planned a mudbug party. A WHAT you say? A crayfish boil party. All of a sudden John was here and much activity was going on shopping -- sausage, potatoes, corn on the cob, crayfish boil seasoning, and yes, live crayfish! Down came the big pots...Out came the propane and the cooking unit. Up showed all the friends. And the garage and backyard were the site of a party. The new sound system* was working well...I haven't clued you in on that yet...and they partied til around 1:30 AM. After the crayfish had their boil, they all had one of their own in the hot tub..Well, maybe not a boil but it was nice and warm.

Summer is not far off for us. I'm so glad to see the warm weather here. Given my wish, I'd live in Phoenix Arizona where it's even warmer than Houston and with NO humidity. I am just eager for it to get a little warmer here so I can start swimming every day. Right now the water is just a bit too cold. If we would stay at 80 degrees, though..........

*Bill recently bought an Ipod which, incidentally required that he buy a new computer in order to use it - haha --he then loaded all our CDs onto the Ipod and he also bought the attachment that allows you to play it on our receiver. When he finished the garage, he put in two ceiling speakers that are awesome, hooked them up to my receiver.. So the garage has an alltime great stereo system.. Now with the ipod he can play any CD that we own. It's pretty fantastic what technology can do now. He can take those songs with him to Scotland; play them on his truck or corvette radio; play them in the house or in the garage... and the data is in a database to be sorted in several ways. That's amazing.

FOR THE BIRDS

If you have a love of humming birds as I do, have a look at http://community-2.webtv.net/hotmail.com/verle33/HummingBirdNest It's an incredible over time viewing of from building of nest til the last bird leaves the nest. It's fascinating to note the size of the eggs when shown against a toothpick marked with 1/2 inch notations. These small beauties I have forever held in awe. They appear to never hold still; however, last summer there was one that came to drink from my feeder that actually stopped his tail "spin" and sat perfectly still on the feeder. I was amazed. Anyone else find these wonderful birds particularly charming?

Maybe there's something seriously wrong with me but I just about blew a cork today writing a note to Blondzila and my soap box got polilshed in high gloss shine. I was sharing with her my sentiments that we are wasting so much steam and energy over Michael Jackson when there are such larger problems in the world. We both find him a "strange pathetic little man". My objection is all the notoriety and attention we afford to the wrong things. I truly wonder while this all goes on, what about the children he has in his own custody. How can these youngsters grow up with good values, well adjusted and secure. And the circus continues and the public begs the media for more press coverage.

The other big concern gay marriage. Is this really a world shaking issue? I thought we had civil union legislation to cover same sex unions. Leave marriage law as it is. I don't believe love is changed by what you call it. Surely we have more important things for our legislative body to ponder. But even so, it has turned into another media hype. Just turn on your computer and type in the word marriage and you will get a barrage of info on gay marriage that will make you hair stand on end. I agree with her that love is such a precious commodity I would not wish anyone to be without it in whatever form it may take. And the gay community may feel strong about this. but once again the press is having a heyday; and that is really what I object to the most. The loud, obnoxious probing opinionated press.

I guess what disturbs me is we seem to have the accent on the wrong syllable. We will publish anything in the name of freedom of the press. But tell me, do we not abuse that freedom when anything and everything is fair game. What happened to reporting "the facts, ma'am." One cannot for one minute give credence to what is read in anything being published. We are a society of opinions, stories written for shock value. Whatever happened to reading the newspaper and knowing that what you read was news not hype. And while I'm at it, what ever happened to at least one upbeat story in the paper...Just one? When people start demanding a different kind of journalism and quit responding to what we are getting, we might find some actual journalists still exist.

WHAT IS ART & FUN & LOVE--VERY PERSONAL

Friday night Ruth and I picked up Bill from work and proceeded down to the Gallery where there was a benefit for a local Tibetan Buddhist group. Her gallery shows contemporary, i.e., abstract art. It was somewhat eye-opening to see what people were willing to pay good money, and large portions of it, to purchase and hang on their walls. There were perhaps 4 pieces which were somewhat realistic, Bill bid on one - a pencil sketch of a horse's head, very nicely done; it showed movement, muscle; I didn't really understand why it was there. It didn't fit in with the other abstract pieces as far as I could tell. But I am no art critic. Far from it. In that room were paintings and sculptures. In the first room was a series of crochet and other needlework done in wild colors, poor job of needlework actually, but interesting. I'm not sure what anyone would do with it. It reminded me of things I had crocheted when beginning to learn that I had thrown away. It was all very strange to me. It was suggested by someone that I might have a reaction to looking at the art. I can't say that any of it really moved me. There were a few pices that I did like. One did move me. It looked like a piece of kitchen linoleum which needed to be mopped. I guess I will have to limit myself to a realistic gallery.

The crowd was another interesting item. Bill suspecting it would be quite varied wore his Levis, boots. cowboy shirt, and hat And one of the best parts of the evening was that my sonl was here from Phoenix to play and sing. I enjoyed hearing him and watching him. He is so good. It is too bad that the right place at the right time hasn't happened for him. But maybe it is just as well. A man raising two sons by himself probably doesn't need to be leading the life of a musician.

After Michael finished playing,we all went to dinner and then three of us went on home. Saturday everyone came over here and we had a day round the pool and barbecue. Meg was also invited because it was her birthday. At night, the guys cooked steak and lobster, potatoes and corn. We had birthday cake for Meg and she seemed happy to have her birthday party here.

It was nice to have a chance to visit with Mike and see how things are going with him since Laura has left. That just sort of came from out of nowhere. He's determined to try to settle it with little uproar and as peaceably as possible. I hope that she don't get demanding and he is able to do that. He has a lot invested in that relationship and I think for her to walk out on him and the two boys, frankly she ought to just walk out and not expect anything! Mike is trying to refinance the house so he can give her half the equity...I say she gets half what they put down ...After all, he is paying off her car. And there are the fines from her drunk driving charges and the insurance rates they have been paying. I'll bet if you added up what it cost for her to work, it would show she didn't contribute much if any to their income by the time you add her drink tab 4-5 nites a week. Oh well, not my fight and I didn't say anything either. Just venting here. Sometimes being a good mom is shutting your mouth real tight and letting the words explode inside. It's one of my poems. on my poetry blog.

Anyway, that was an interesting two days out of three. and this third day? well I pruned the palm trees, weeded, and leveled some soil. Believe it or not! m

Goodbye Amanda

I've let time slip away from blogging for a week or so while I wrestled with what was, for me, a tough decision. You see, I have this friend. Stripes and spots, gray, white and black with a splash of tan, half Tabby and half Siamese. She is a real talker with quite a vocabulary. Easy to understand what she is saying and what she wants. And they say animals are dumb. Not as dumb as the person who said that! I've know her for almost 19 years.

When she was young, she raced through the house, dashing into a ferocious battle with the hair of my St. Bernard's tail. Then on to mountain climb the steep steps to the interesting master bedroom upstairs where such things as yarn and hats with feathers and spools of thread could be found. Oh how she would stretch so long to reach that next step and then pull with all her might until she would sort of bounce and roll upon the stair and then start the whole process over til she reached the top. She matured into a loving pal, who loved to play fetch, torment the dog on occasion, and take naps cuddled close to me. She traveled from Denver CO to Fairfax VA to Oklahoma City OK to Houston TX to Grand Junction CO and back to Houston. She was healthy and hearty up until about a year ago and then it was just taking some pills for thyroid. But somehow over the last three weeks she started to battle with me about taking them, and it seemed this was becoming a form of torture. I couldn't keep doing it. And she was losing more weight. She was very thin. She also kept to herself sleeping under a covered table in the dark. She didn't want to play or cuddle. She had no quality of life.

This morning I took my friend Amanda to see our friend Dr, Hebert and I asked him to put her to sleep because that was the kind thing to do. I know it was right. So why do I feel so bad? I know that in time, memories of that beautiful cat will make me smile. But right now I am hurting. My thoughtful brother brought me flowers last night. And my good friend Karen spent the day with me. I am blessed to have such good people surrounding me. My girls look at me with inquiring eyes. They know she is gone. They note the gate missing from my door and walk in the room which now shows no evidence that a cat ever resided there. Karen kindly took everything and I appreciated that more that I can say.

Nineteen years is so so long. That cat outlived two husbands and my mother. She comforted me through a lot of ups and downs. She was there before and after the onset of the severe biopolar disorder. And it was unconditional acceptance. She was a one of a kind with a most unusual shade of green eyes - beautiful, everyone that met her commented on the color. She will be missed deeply.

If there is an up side, which there always is, she is no longer suffering from a racing metabolism and heart rate and losing weight and all the physical things that were wrong. My brother is going to be much more comfortable as he has tolerated that cat for me and he is highly allergic to cats but knew how I loved her and invited me and the cat and the dog to move in. Whenever my other brother or my daughter Monica and her husband and children came to visit, I would have to pack Amanda off to the kennel because of asthma and severe allergies and then have thorough vacuuming and cleaning done. So from a cat dander perspective, it is positive, I guess. But it is the reason that I won't have another cat which is sad. They have a certain attitude and personality which I can identify with and find pleasing to the soul. Maybe down the road in another lifetime. Who knows. If there are other lifetimes, I'll bet I meet up with Amanda again in some form!